Through a Child's Eye

In August 1997, the Shootback photography programme was introduced to strengthen cooperative relationships between MYSA youth as well as to offer a vocational outlet for their creative energies. 16 girls and 16 boys ages 12-17 were selected to participate.

The young people are provided with basic point-and-shoot 35mm cameras, and asked to photograph aspects of their lives that they deem important and/or problematic, including family, community, environment, health, and personal issues. Photographer Lana Wong and MYSA youth leader Francis Kimanzi teach the youth photographic techniques and lead weekly discussion sessions, which serve as a forum to talk about pressing issues in the community.

In August and September 1998, an exhibition of 100 Shootback photographs were shown at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. The Shootback Team also participated in an arts and technology initiative originated by The Photographers' Gallery, London.

The project also uses the Internet to enable children to develop dialogues, exchange images, and share experiences with other children around the world. The Shootback Team has been exchanging e-mails and images with children from London, Dhaka, Bangladesh and Capetown, South Africa.

Children, Youth.

The Mathare area is one of the largest and poorest slums in Africa, with several hundred thousand inhabitants. The majority are children with few opportunities, let alone access to playing fields for sports. Their homes are often surrounded by garbage and waste, which can cause diseases that cripple or kill.

Just as football has been used as a tool for encouraging cooperation, raising self-esteem and promoting physical and environmental health in the Mathare community, photography by and for the Mathare youth themselves, organisers say, is proving to be a powerful developmental, educational, and vocational tool.

Kids who have been involved in MYSA since its beginning have become youth leaders and role models in the community. 125 of these young leaders have received special training and now lead an HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, and counseling programme in the slums.